Sunday, June 28, 2009

The Filipino inmates whose YouTube video of their "Thriller" dance went viral, recreated the event on Saturday in a tribute to their idol, Michael Jackson. The original idea was developed by Byron Garcia, the Cebu provincial security consultant who came up with the idea of adding dancing to poorly attended exercise sessions.

The original video was uploaded in July of 2007, and has been viewed nearly 26 million times, many of them, you can bet, since Thursday.

Upon hearing of his death, the 1,500 inmates at the Cebu Provincial Detention and Rehabilitation Center decided right then and there to recreate the original event. They practiced for nine hours Friday night and Saturday morning for the show.

Not only has video of the recreation once again been uploaded to YouTube, many fans came to view the hour-long performance, live. The show included more than just Thriller, the video above shows performance to the song, "Ben" and "I'll Be There," both of which Jackson performed when he was still a child.

Watch a CNN report on the new performance, and the original video at the bottom.